


Autumn in Braavos

by Florentium



Series: Summer Offerings [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Banter, Braavos, Canon-Typical Age of Consent, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Sexism, Childbirth, Cultural Differences, Devotion, Discussion of Abortion, Domesticity, Essos, Explicit Sexual Content, Homesickness, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Intimacy, Living In Exile, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medieval Medicine, Oaths & Vows, Oral Sex, Queer Themes, Relationship Negotiation, Romance, Slice of Life, The Free Cities (ASoIaF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:55:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22908427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florentium/pseuds/Florentium
Summary: Having fled the across the Narrow Sea, Theon and Jon take up residence in the Free City of Braavos, just as autumn arrives.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Jon Snow
Series: Summer Offerings [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1080639
Comments: 37
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

Hummingbirds nest in the inner courtyard of their house.

Though it is not their house, of course. They rent a room on the third floor, where the draughts are strongest and the rents the cheapest. The building is like many in Braavos: three storey rowhouse of brick-and-plaster — wood frames rotted in the sea dampness — red tiled roofs, built around an enclosed inner atrium that was open to the sky. The ground floor housed the kitchens, the larder, the laundry, walled on the sides that faced the street or the canal, and demarcated only by an open covered walk of columned arches on the side of the inner court. The upper two storeys all had similar walks encircling the central open space that allowed daylight to plunge from rooftop to garden floor and illuminate all floors on the inner atrium.

This style of open court garden was popular in the Free Cities, an old Valyrian style of dwelling that was pleasant in the warmer southern climates. It is a humble establishment, the front doors opened onto a narrow alley, while the back of the house stood against a murky canal with wooden steps leading down to a small quay where pole barges and serpent boats could moor. The boarding house serves mostly Westerosi, whether they were visitors or permanent expatriots, and the household language was the Common Tongue. It is run by an old brick-shaped woman and her daughter, and though the origins of the woman were indeterminate, the daughter had been born and raised in King’s Landing and her accent shows it.

It is she who tends the atrium garden. The central part of the open courtyard was floored with slate, a roundel of stone in the square court, and in the unfloored corners flower beds bloom. Tall shrubs of blue lilac that were the sweetest thing Jon had ever smelled. In one corner a small orange tree grew, casting shade over the seating area and slate flagstone. Purple-indigo morning glory vine with its trumpet-shaped blooms climbed up one of the columns of the arcade. Stalks of foxglove and sun drop grew tall in the shade, overflowing with blooms, yellow and speckled pink. A boxy hedge of lavender guarded the marble arches opposite the orange tree, attracting bees by the swarm in the daylight. On a trellis between two columns, a high, purple wall of wisteria grew in tumbling bunches, racemes of waterfalling blooms hanging from the lattice overhead.

It is the bountiful, lush wisteria that brings the hummingbirds. They flit about the hanging flowers like little jewels on the wing. Jon had never seen such animals before arriving in Braavos; the North is too cold for such delicate creatures. No bigger than a walnut, the tiny birds will swoop and buzz about the courtyard garden, hovering like dragonflies, iridescent in the sun, shimmering metallic green and red.

Early in their time here, Jon would take tea in the garden — a habit of the Free Cities he had taken up — and watch them for hours. Three, four, sometimes six or seven of the little birds at a time would dive and swirl among the garden, drink nectar from flowers in the midair, alight on the rim of the ceramic birdbath for a drink. So small, they were, with their gem-like colours and long bills like a woman’s hairpin. To them, this quiet garden was the great wide world.

Theon could not stand Jon’s hours of watching. He could stand Essosi tea even less. There was nothing duller in the world than watching birds, he had announced after half an hour of sitting with Jon in the garden. It bored him to tears. Now, when Jon sits quietly with his tea, Theon busies himself elsewhere.

Not that Jon minds. He enjoys the time alone; there is not a lot of it to come by in the city.

Sometimes the landlady’s daughter, Leona, joins him, or other tenants from the boarding house. They are always changing. Some only passed through, here and gone in as many days, but most boarders were long-term tenants as Jon and Theon are, and they have come to know those they share a household with.

There is an older woman of middle years, Clara, who, despite her age, stood straight and fit. She had once been a physician at Braavos’ hall of healing. The House of Red Hands they call it, grimly, but for reasons unknown to Jon she had been expelled from her work there. Now, she plies her trade among the brothel girls, staving off pox and warts and pregnancy.

There is also Ferrego, an aged drunk on the floor beneath them, who in his youth had been a bravo, or so he claims. Bald and puffy from years of wine, the man indeed went about the streets with a sword on his hip, though Jon had never seen him fight. The landlady complains that Ferrego won his rent in duels each month and then spent it all on wine before it was due.

Theon gets on famously with Ferrego, accompanying him frequently to winesinks and lesser brothels in the cool evenings on the canals. Any man wearing a sword after dark could be challenged to a duel by another, so Theon wears only his dagger on these outings, but Ferrego is a rowdy drunk, and goes about with his sword, often shouting out challenges in the dark streets. Most of them he wins, though he has lost more than he would admit.

Also on the second floor there is a young man and his wife who hail from some minor holdfast in the Reach. He was the fourthborn son to a cadet branch of his house and he did not stand to inherit much, so he had taken his new wife to Braavos to seek fortune in the Free Cities. Steffon was the lad’s name, and Delena was his pretty wife. Both were kind enough. Whether she was highborn or not, Jon could not say, but Steffon keeps a handmaid employed for his pretty wife, no matter her standing. And, after a month or so at sea, Delena had arrived in Braavos heavy with child.

Clara, the physician, had taken to the pretty young lady, acting as both as the lady’s maester and midwife in exchange for some of her lord husband’s coin. Jon thinks that is half the reason the young lord rented their lodging here, to have his bride properly tended to. The way he frets over her, Jon is certain this will be the first child of them both.

Despite most autumn days in Braavos being grey and damp, this morning is bright and warm, a square section of blue cloudless sky visible above the atrium garden while Jon eats a late breakfast of figs and cheese with his tea. He’d had the luxury of sleeping late this morning, woken only briefly as Theon dressed for work. He had found employment as an assistant to a clerk in the harbourmaster’s chancery, copying cargo ledgers and collecting tariffs. Dull work, Theon called it, but it paid more than work as a sellsword and Theon got to spend his days on the wharf, under the sun and salt. He came home to Jon each night smelling of the sea. Though truly, all of Braavos smelled of the sea. But Jon is certain, when they lay in bed together at the end of the day, that the scent is strongest on Theon’s skin.

Theon had dressed, pulling on his fine indigo tunic of embroidered linen and a heavy oilskin cloak that he donned on the docks. He’d placed a kiss in Jon’s hair before departing, and Jon had stretched, bedraggled in the sunlight of their mussed bed, falling promptly back asleep.

So late had he slept, that the boarding house was all but empty of tenants and the morning meal had been cleared away. He had traded one of the kitchen girls a smile for a plate of figs and cheese. She had been humoured by his attempt, and had brought his meal without complaint.

Life in Braavos had not always been so languishing. When they’d first arrived to the city they had slept in haystacks and traded work as bodyguards at a brothel for a bed and food. In the beginning, both Jon and Theon had woefully underestimated how precious a skill their literacy was in the secret city. They imagined they would mostly easily find work as sellswords or guardsmen, and it is true that there is much of that sort of work to be had, but there were three times as many men with arms seeking that sort of work for themselves. Any man who could purchase his own lance or sword could then sell his skills with it, such as they were. 

But not every man could read or write. That had been how they’d first kept themselves from turning beggars on the canals. They had been sleeping at taverns and brothels near Ragman’s Harbour where the foreign sailors spent their time and coin while ashore. The poorer brothels would offer them rooms more cheaply if they paid for the whole night and did not bother the girls. They had been loud places at all hours, clamouring with rowdy drunks, games of cards and dice, and the loud cries of happy patrons, but Jon had quickly trained himself to ignore the din. They had slept rougher than that before.

After a year, though, their standing has improved. Life holds some comforts, now, even if they must launder their own clothes and pay for their own wine. 

And no matter how sweet life in the city got, not a day went by for Jon without the distant melancholy of homesickness.

For Braavos was not home.

He brings his empty dishes back to the scullery. Now would be the time he would dress and leave to complete errands in the city, if he had any to attend to. But this day he has no duties. His time is full of leisure, and he can do with it what he wishes. 

That is not always a welcome thing, having the freedom to shape his days however he likes. As a boy, Jon had always flourished under order and discipline.

Instead, he will return to their room, gather their garments that will be brought to the laundresses tomorrow. Theon is out working for their month’s rent. Jon does what he can to contribute to their comfort.

Down the corridor, as he passes by the parlour, he can hear strange voices. Women’s voices. At times, girls and women from the wharf brothels would turn up at the boarding house looking for the physician Clara, seeking remedies or treatments. Having common whores knocking on the door incensed the landlady, not wanting the reputation of her establishment to be smeared, so now Clara insists that the girls arrive well-dressed and decent, or she will turn them away.

One day out of ten or so, Jon or Theon would be confronted by a strange girl waiting in the parlour. Some were shy and quiet, trying, it would seem, to vanish into the cushions. Some were brash and forward, though not so bold as to get themselves thrown out. Some were young, some old. Some born in the same brothel they now worked, some from lands so distant Jon did not know their names.

Today, having finished his leisurely breakfast, Jon is returning to his room when he runs headlong into somesuch girl in the corridor.

A bright, willowy girl with a head of straw-coloured curls that hang about her neck trots down the hall at Clara’s side. Her face lights up when her gaze falls on Jon.

“Oh, and you’re a new one,” she remarks. “Haven’t seen the likes of you before. Handsome man, you are. Why have they got you hiding away behind the walls, here?”

“That’s enough from you, girl,” intervenes Clara, “the old woman will beat your hide blue if she hears of you trawling for customers in her household.” 

“But he’s a pretty one, though. Wouldn’t be half a hardship to lay down with the likes of him.”

“The lad is as poor as his mate,” Clara says, as if that would stop most men, “both of them only barely pay their rent. He’s got no coin to spare on yours.”

The girl pouts, disappointed, and shrugs.

Face burning, Jon turns and hurries away.

In Winterfell, nobody had paid Jon attention over his looks. The women of Winterfell were mostly married and mostly virtuous. And that besides, he was the lord’s bastard, a lowly prospect to all but unwed kitchen maids or laundresses. Young girls of the castle had mooned after his brother Robb, an heir handsome and trueborn, or Theon, who would enchant and discard them in the span of an evening. 

As a child, Jon had stewed in jealousy. Now that he was no one, Jon found himself shying away from such attentions.

It’s not that Jon is incurious. Moreso, it is just so unfamiliar. The attention, he finds, is a touch disquieting. Braavosi women — and in truth, the men as well — are not meek or shy; they make their attentions obvious. Shopgirls smile at him and gladly display the best of their wares. The handmaidens of wealthy noblewoman roam the canals in packs, whispering to one another behind their hands as they cast ravenous looks toward Jon from across the cobbled square. From balconies over the streets, whores with painted faces would heckle him in the Braavosi tongue, and though Jon could not understand the words, the gestures they employed made their meaning clear.

Once, after Theon and Jon had whiled away the evening at a playhouse near the Purple Harbour, a bold young man had strolled right up to Jon in the street and touched Jon’s hair in a sweet caress, saying something to him in a heavily accented Common Tongue. 

Theon had throttled the brazen boy half to death before the crowd had pulled them apart. 

When they had at last made it to their room that night, Jon had still been breathless. 

Having escaped the attentions of Clara’s girl, Jon keeps to their bedchamber for the afternoon, absently cleaning, dusting, awaiting Theon’s return. Keeping tidy has taken the place of daily swordplay and riding; giving him something to do with his hands. It allows him time to sort his thoughts out. 

Jon does not like to be idle. Does not like to feel useless. And now that it is just the two of them, there is far more work for each of them to keep their little household afloat.

As useful as the chores are, Jon had enjoyed making coin as well. Back when it first became known that they both could read and write the Common Tongue and knew the Valyrian alphabet, visiting sailors would pay them coppers to write out letters to their wives. A drunken bravo had once paid Jon a silver piece to write a love poem to a whore. The young swordsman had fallen for the woman and meant to declare his passions, so Jon had copied down the dictation in High Valyrian, fumbling conjugations and skipping words he didn’t know. When the enamoured bravo had presented his verse to the whore down on one knee, she had sneered and told the man that she could not read. She had been a lovely woman, even with her scowl, and Jon had felt for the bravo as he was turned away.

That girl with Clara, she had been pretty as well. For all her frankness, her spirited sort of charm had been affecting. And though she had an abrupt loss of interest upon learning Jon could not afford her services, it has left Jon feeling lonesome or… perhaps yearning. Like that boy outside the playhouse. The way his eyes had roved over him had left Jon's cheeks burning.

Moreso had been Theon’s reaction, not only the fistfight in the street but the way he’d taken Jon afterward. Pinned him face-first against the plaster wall of their room, one hand clenched in Jon’s hair. He had not stopped talking, not until Jon came dizzy and shaking beneath Theon’s grip.

The memory of it makes Jon squirm as he wipes down their windowsill. His clothes suddenly feel constricting, too hot, though the evening breeze rolling in from the bay is damp and cool. A low, thin fog had settled over the lagoon as evening approaches. The days are growing shorter as summer is ending, and the sun is beginning to dip over the Titan far off in the distance. Jon can just see it between the overlapping roofs beyond their alleyway, the labyrinth of tiny islands stacked high with buildings and bridges, over the green copper dome of the Palace of Truth and soaring aqueduct of the sweetwater river. Even at this great distance, the Titan is still the tallest sight from their window, rising high over the city, broken bronze sword glinting in the golden evening light. The roar of the Titan will sound at sundown, signaling the end of the day.

They have been in the city nearly a year and this view still humbles Jon. Braavos has been good to them. 

But still, Jon can't shake the stirring and itching in his body. It distracts him from his tasks. Theon will return from the wharf, soon, but Jon is not in the mood to wait. Shedding his tunic and breeches, Jon crawls back onto their bed, over their thick wolf pelts and recalls how Theon had bent over him that night after the playhouse, rambling and hissing in his ear.

 _“My beautiful boy,”_ Theon had purred. _“You’re mine, aren’t you, Jon? Say it. Say that you’re mine.”_

Shifting his thighs, Jon reaches for the jar of tallow by the bed, slicking his fingers before reaching for himself. That night had left him speechless, wracked. It’s intoxicating when it's like that, when Jon feels the sort of madness barely contained beneath Theon’s skin. Jon loves the way Theon cannot seem to help himself, cannot restrain himself. And more than anything, Jon craves the feeling of being wanted; of being _cherished._

Sliding two fingers inside himself, Jon hardly even gasps. His body is accustomed to it now, can take most of it with ease. That makes him feel a little dirty, but in a way that strangely does not trouble him.

He recalls other instances of Theon's protectiveness. A time Theon had pulled him close when a traveller who came to lodge at the boarding house had asked Jon his name. It was innocent, nothing untoward, but when caught unawares at times they still struggled with assumed names, and when Jon had stuttered Theon had sidled close and draped an arm over his shoulders and spoken for him. 

Later in that same night Theon had littered Jon’s pale throat with bites, fucking into him with frantic urgancy, as if they'd be caught, as if they were still tucked away in the Winterfell godswood.

Theon will be home soon, Jon knows. He will ready himself, lure Theon into bed the moment he walks through the door. And Theon will devour him. He has always loved the look of Jon when he’s this way, says his cheeks go red and his eyes cloud over. Always whispers how no one else has seen him so desperate and raw. It melts Jon every time, that Theon is his only, his everything.

_“You are mine, Jon. Say it, that you’re — that you’re mine.”_

Which one of them is more ravenous, more needful? A time, Jon would have thought it were himself, the timid virgin stupidly falling for a dashing highborn lad, but now Theon demands possession — Theon’s need for Jon’s assurance, his promise. That he belongs, body and heart.

It’s powerful to realize. That Theon needs that. Needs it from Jon, of all people. Jon had always thought himself the more dependent one of them, but now he is not so sure. All the times that Theon has been stopped in the street by soliciting whores or flirting tavern girls, all the good-natured smiles and winks he gives them in return. It has never bothered Jon. Never occurred to him that it should. It is Theon’s nature to charm and delight. He thrives on the sort of attention that Jon misprizes. 

But Theon cannot abide that same attention turned towards Jon, it seems. Somehow, it is different, then. Jealous and selfish and possessive, like a man is possessive of his wife. He’d kill for Jon. He’s done so before. Had almost done so again to the poor boy who dared touch him by the Purple Harbour. 

In bed, Jon groans at the thought. His eyes slide shut, his free hand roams over his own body. Just the memory of it turns him wild. An unmanly thought, perhaps, but Jon is truly kept, now. He belongs to Theon, and Theon is his. Theon will always be his.

His own fingers are warm, soft and slick with tallow as he lets the image take shape: Theon curled over him, pinning him down against their bed like he often does. What would Theon do if he had seen that girl on the stairs with him, or heard what Clara had said to wave her away? Would he be proud, grin in that smug little way he does before leading Jon into their room to ruin his skin with claims? What would Theon do if instead he saw this, walked in on Jon splayed bare onto their bed, fucking himself like a wanton whore? Would he be jealous even of this? 

The furs beneath him tickle the back of his legs, and Jon rolls himself over onto his front. The position is easier for his reach, up on his knees. He pictures Theon seeing him now, pouncing over him and snatching his hand away, holding him firm so that he’s left to writhe and beg until Theon slides his cock inside him. 

Jon moans, pressing his face into the cushions, his body burning. He needs it more than anything, to be kept, to be owned, to be precious.

Then, taking a heavy breath, Jon pulls his hand away. He bites his lip, forces himself to endure the lack of touch. He rocks back on his knees, . His skin is alight, sheened with sweat, desperate for contact, and Jon lets his hand rove over himself again in an attempt to satiate the need. He chews hard against the inside of his cheek to stop himself from wrapping his hand around his cock. 

He turns again onto his back, tracing his own fingertips up his chest, over his throat, through his hair. Jon smiles. Teasing and denying himself, Jon knows, it will make the waiting worth it when Theon returns.

Jon is good at being patient.

The light from the window has turned golden. From far in the distance, the bellowing roar of the Titan carries over the city, long and droning. A chorus of gulls take up the call in the following silence, as they do each night, displeased at the cacophonous disturbance.

Breathing hard, Jon reaches his arms over his head and stretches. His back arches and one of his ankles cracks pleasantly. A silly sort of deviousness pulses within him. Sitting back against the cushions and furs, Jon looks out the window and waits. It will not be long.

Jon can hear him before Theon opens the door, stomping up the stairs the way he does. He does not bother to cover himself. Why delay the surprise any further?

Theon enters their room like a small whirlwind, throwing down his satchel bag, fussing with his boots immediately, all before the door even shuts behind him. He doesn’t look at Jon laying on the bed as he kicks off his boots and peels off his socks with a loud sigh. 

“Clara’s new girl in the parlor wants another child put into her straight away, it seems,” he says, back turned to Jon as he shoulders off his oilskin coat. “She's either devious or a fool. You’d think the last scare wouldn’t embolden her so, but I suppose the girl is hard up for coin and would rather have a handsome foreigner in her bed than some toothless old drunk to pay for...” he trails off when he catches sight of Jon reclining naked on their bed, and his eyes widen. After a moment, he smiles. “Aye, lonely day, was it?”

“Not so much,” Jon tells him, arms folded behind his head. “The girl caught sight of me, as well. On the stairs.”

Smile flitting slightly, Theon arches an eyebrow. “Did she, now? Is it her that’s got you all riled and eager, then?” 

“Wouldn’t be right of you to strike a lady, Theon,” Jon teases. It makes Theon smile.

“Oh aye.” He unlaces his tunic and pulls it over his head. “Lucky for me she’s no lady, then.”

“Theon!” Jon is shamed by his own laugh, grabbing the small cushion from behind his head and throwing it at Theon’s smug smile. It falls to the newly swept floor, and Theon bends to swipe it up.

He climbs over Jon, brackets his strong arms on either side of Jon’s head. Grinning, looking down at Jon as if it’s still just the first time. It churns warm in Jon’s belly, and he sits up to kiss the smile from Theon’s face.

“I missed you,” Jon admits in a low breath, his tempered want rekindling at Theon’s touch. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Oh, well, a thousand apologies for the delay, my lord,” replies Theon in a mocking lilt. “Did I keep you waiting so terribly long?”

“It’s been hours.” Jon can’t hold in a grin.

“Such a hardship, lying abed all day yearning for your lover while I’m put to work on the wharves, toiling and slogging in the sun.”

Jon tisks. “Copying ledgers in a dim chancery.”

“Shall I send you in my place then? You go play scribe and instead I will spend the day comfortably in bed, sleeping until noon and touching myself to thoughts of you.”

Jon bites his own lip at the thought. Above him, Theon laughs, victorious. 

“Still such an insatiable little slut,” Theon croons. “You’ve had me near every evening these past five nights.”

“And still you have not satisfied me,” replies Jon, heat rising in him a little at being called a slut.

“Your kind are never satisfied.”

So doting, for all his taunting, leaving gentle kisses down Jon’s neck. Years back, when this had first started, Jon had interrogated Theon about the other girls that he brought into his bed, begging for assurance that he was different, that he was worthy, that Theon would not cast him aside when he grew bored. That feels like another lifetime, now.

“I’m ready for you, Theon, please…”

“Aye, you have me,” Theon purrs behind his ear. There is no doubt. No shame or flustering. It’s the surest thing Jon knows.

Whoever would have thought that this would be where they found their comfort? With one another, across the sea.

When, at last, Theon is inside of him, Jon must bite down on his knuckle to keep from crying out. They know each other’s bodies so well, now, and Theon can find that place inside of him so easily, angle his hips to work him perfectly. In response, Jon rakes his nails down Theon’s back, knowing how it makes him shiver and moan.

A soft whine leaving his mouth, Theon grabs one of Jon’s wrists and pins it beside his head. He drives his hips hard enough that the wooden bedframe rocks hard into the wall. For a moment the room fades, swims, and Jon wraps his legs around Theon’s hips to pull him close.

No one else has ever seen in Jon what Theon seems to, and at times the fondness in his eyes can overwhelm Jon to see. 

Squeezing with his knees, Jon urges Theon to turn over, and climbs astride him. He resumes their pace slowly, drawing himself high on his knees and sinking down once more. Reclined against the headboard, Theon watches, a ravenous hunger in his eyes. He takes Jon’s hips in both hands, guiding him, driving his fingertips hard into his flesh. He loves it when Jon is overtop of him.

Jon is steady in his pacing, rolling his body in a long, luscious surge, over and over. He will not rush this, not when he had waited all afternoon. He could be patient a while more.

A flyaway curl of black hair falls into his face as he rocks his head back, angling himself just so, so that Theon hits that spot inside of him that curls his toes. With a pleased moan, Jon runs a hand through his own hair, tracing down his body, his chest and stomach, thumbing over one of his nipples. The display is for Theon, who groans and bucks beneath him.

Sometimes still, Jon is alarmed at how much he likes it, to simper and tease, to flaunt himself lewd and unabashedly for Theon. It feels womanly, it feels whorish, and neither of those things turn him away from it. Truly, they spur him further.

He quickens their pace, bringing his hands over Theon’s, where they grip onto Jon’s hips. He bites his lip. Jon could come untouched just from this. He slides over Theon’s cock and breathes, “Harder.”

Theon’s nails dig into Jon’s hips and hold him still as he quickens his thrusts, forcing Jon down over him, causing the bed to rock rhythmically into the wall. He’s losing himself now, eyes going black. Jon can see it, even as the wave of bliss crashes over him. Even as white sparks in front of his eyes, Jon blinks it away, keeping his gaze on Theon.

“Look — look at me,” Jon whispers, and Theon does, eyes glassy and besotten. No one has ever looked at Jon like this, as if the sun rises and falls at his whim.

With a reedy whine, Theon’s eyes fall shut from a shift in their bodies, and Jon lets himself be greedy, just a moment longer. Touching his face with trembling fingers, Jon breathes, “Please, Lord Greyjoy…”

It affects Theon more than Jon thought it would. As if he’d forgotten, after all this time, the title he has. The title that is his by right. He surges upright, arms wrapping around Jon’s back like a vice.

His mouth falls open in a long breath as he whispers, “Oh — _gods_...”

Encouraged, Jon digs his nails into Theon’s hair, pushing back against his cock inside of him, “Yes, Lord — Lord Greyjoy… please…”

Something animalistic takes Theon over then, throwing Jon back against the furs and holding him down with so much force that the air leaves Jon’s lungs in a rush. Pinned firmly to their bed, Jon gasps, whines, squirming back against Theon’s solid body, until a soft whimper leaves his mouth, “ _Yes…_ ”

“ _Mine,_ ” Theon snarls against his throat. 

Keening, Jon roils against him, driving him deeper. He’s so close, helpless, and Theon looks down at him as if there’s nothing else in the world. Tears sting in the corners of Jon’s eyes, and Theon bows close to kiss his tears away, gentle and soft to contrast the rest of him.

Jon’s tears have always made him soft.

“My sweet boy,” Theon purrs, pressing kisses to Jon’s tear-slick cheeks. “Oh, my — my sweet boy. You’re mine. Mine to have and care for. Everything for you, Jon, do you — hear me?”

Breathless, Jon says again, “Yes.”

Theon tucks an arm behind Jon’s head, keeping them close, sharing the same air as his other hand creeps between them to wrap around Jon’s cock. He gets this way, sometimes. As overwhelmed by his own affection as Jon tends to be, holding him close as they both reach release. With both hands freed, Jon clings to him, shuddering and silent as he comes hard over Theon’s hand.

Gasping, Jon groans as Theon is overcome a moment later, finishes deep inside of him, and the sensation causes Jon’s pleasure to skirt the edge of too much, his body starting to shake.

“That’s it, Jon,” Theon whispers after a moment, voice raw against his ear, “that’s it.” 

Jon had not thought to light any candles or lanterns before falling into bed, and the two of them lie together in darkness now that the sun has fully set around them. Theon runs his hand over Jon’s cheek before placing a kiss on his temple and hoisting himself out of their bed.

For a moment, Jon watches silently as Theon strikes the flint and lights the candles around their room. As the glow spills across their walls, Jon notices their clothes strewn about his newly cleaned floor and tisks.

“All the work I put into tidying our room and you muss it in moments.”

Theon pours himself a glass of wine now that the room is lit. “Aye, well, I’d try harder to be orderly, but you fell so easily into the role of the dutiful wife.”

The joke seems pointed, after his comment about the girl in the parlor, after invoking his discarded title had turned him so wild. Considering, Jon rises and picks Theon’s clothes up off the floor, shaking them out and folding them away. 

Theon has always been proud of his body, shameless as he moves about the room. Jon is cold the moment he slinks out from their furs, but Theon does not seem to notice the chill of the air as he brings his wineglass to his lips. Sensing Jon’s eyes on him, Theon glances over to wink at him with a smirk.

Jon looks at his feet, hiding his smile. It reminds Jon of when they first arrived in Braavos, and took to staying in the brothel on the canals. It had been warmer then, at the start of the year, and Theon had enjoyed teasing Jon by wandering around their room nude. Back then, it had been Theon leading Jon to bed in the middle of the day. The sounds of the girls working throughout the day had always done something to Theon, made him insatiable.

At first, living in a brothel had sounded unseemly, but it had quickly lost any sense of mystery or scandal, even to Jon. After a fortnight, he had no longer balked at the sight of a girl slipping past him in the parlour without clothes on, and eventually he grew used to the sounds of business. Theon had sworn he could tell when the girls’ cries were genuine and when they were feigned, but Jon was not so certain.

Though sometimes, when the mood had struck him, Theon would pull Jon into whatever room was free and suck his cock, or take him on the soiled bed. As the girls would moan and squeal through the walls, Theon had whispered in Jon’s ear, “Men would pay for you, but you offer it to me free of charge. But no matter. The girls are fucked out there for coin and gifts and you are fucked in here for my pleasure.”

Jon would come hard under Theon’s hand, listening to the cries of pleasure resound throughout the halls.

It had been clear back then that Theon was sometimes tempted. What man wouldn't be? Some of the women were older, with thinning hair and missing teeth, but a few were young and pretty, though none as beautiful as Ros, Jon had thought, privately. At times, Jon would return from a day on the canals to Theon seated in the parlour with a naked girl in his lap. Some of the girls had been blatant, trying to lure one or both of them with gropes or kisses, pretending not to understand the Common Tongue when told to stop.

And at first, Jon had worried. Despite their grand promises to one another while sleeping rough in the Northern wilderness, Jon knew better than to expect Theon’s desires and lusts to be tempered by mere words. What good were words, in the end? And in the lagoon city with its hundred isles and thousand pillow houses, there are countless women — and men — who would offer themselves for coins or protection or favour.

But despite the city teeming with willing flesh, Theon has never strayed. They had never spoken of it, never out loud, but Jon would see the little craving in his eyes when Theon turns a girl away. Greyjoy is not used to denying himself what he wants.

It matters something to Jon. It matters greatly that, given the opportunity, Theon kept his word and did not abandon him.

In their small room, Jon pushes up from their straw bed and swings his legs over the edge. The air was getting cooler and cooler each night. The hearth would need to be lit throughout the night, soon. They would need to start saving for firewood. It is so costly in Braavos.

Jon plucks a leather tie and pin from the bedside table and fixes his hair back. He had started wearing it in a knot at the back of his head recently, the way the northmen wear their hair.

He washes himself in their washbasin, scrubbing his face and neck. He holds a briquette of charcoal to a candle flame to light it, then sets it in the censer atop their little round table. Places a drop of hardened pine resin in the dish. A thin, blue tail of smoke rises from the censer, tall and slim through the air, before curling into a whiplash and diffusing throughout the room. The resin incense is an expensive indulgence, but when they can afford it, Jon likes to have some. The fragrance reminds him of the woods of the North.

Jon inhales the scent. His muscles are loose, his skin still warm to the touch. He pulls on a clean pair of breeches and a new tunic. It is no longer warm enough to sleep naked throughout the night.

Theon comes up behind him, hands resting on his waist, nosing behind his ear. 

“And to think that girl downstairs would have me pay for it,” he hums.

“She is not your sort of girl, anyway.”

“And what sort is my sort of girl?”

“Fulsome,” says Jon, “and redheaded.”

Theon chuckles and finally begins to redress, pulling on some clothes. He delicately takes his glass of wine and kicks his feet up on their cushioned window seat.

A thought strikes Jon. “Do you miss it?”

“Miss it?” Theon takes a long sip.

“Girls,” Jon says. He looks down at himself. “I don’t look much like Ros. Or any of those girls from the winter town.”

Theon shrugs. “I suppose I miss it. At times. The way a man might miss a particular food when it is out of season.” 

“Your appetites have always been… broad.” To keep himself occupied, Jon bends and picks up Theon’s discarded oilskin coat, straightening it. “And I’m not sure if I understand it. The… appetites, I mean. If I see a beautiful girl in the street, and if I think I’d like her…. I can imagine it, but it is not the same. Not the same as wanting you.” 

Theon smiles at him, and returns to his wine, looking out the window over the lantern-lit canals and rooftops.

But Jon cannot stop thinking about it. About the girl in the parlour. About all those women Theon had turned away their first half a year in Braavos. About how when they quarreled over petty disagreements and did not speak for days out of spite, Theon never ran off to some whore’s bed, for spite or comfort. Even when Jon feared that he might.

He blurts out, "I wouldn't mind it, you know."

"Hmm? What's that now?"

Jon folds away his cloak, hangs it from a hook on the door of the wardrobe. "If you took her to bed. Or any girl to bed. I wouldn't mind it."

It is a gambit to say it. Theon stares at him, puts down his glass of wine. "You're not funny, Jon."

"Well, I'm not joking." Jon closes the wardrobe and turns to face him. "If it were... if it were just that, just as a dalliance, I do not think I would mind.”

"Shut it. Don't say things like that."

Despite everything, Theon's reaction bewilders him. Jon says, "I thought you would be glad."

"Glad?" Theon nearly shouts it. "Glad for what? To know that you would happily trade your place in our bed with a whore? Glad that you are so eager for me to take up with some trollop?"

"Stop." Jon takes a step toward him. "It's not like that, you know it isn't. Theon, you think I do not know you by now? She’s a lovely thing. She certainly would not turn you away. Why not indulge a want?"

"Why not?" stutters Theon, sitting upright now. "For _you_. I turn it down for you, Jon. I am yours and you are mine, is that not what we said to one another? Do you think I ran away to Braavos so that I might keep whoring with women and keep you locked away?"

"You kept whoring for a time in Winterfell," notes Jon, "and I did not mind it then."

That cows Theon slightly. "That was before," he counters.

"Before."

"Yes, before! Before my uncle returned and murdered my father. Before the king ordered me to the Wall. Before you rescued me, before you risked _everything—_ "

"Before it was love?"

The word still makes Theon stumble, even after all this time. He takes a moment to regain himself and says, "Before it was love," nearly laughing the word. "I have lost so much for you, and you for me, Jon. And you would... you would have me dishonour you like this? Dishonour what we have lost, what we have given up?"

"I do not find it a dishonour. I know your devotion is true.”

“Do you? Truely?” Theon asks, eyes narrowed. “After all your begging and crying when we laid together that first night in the winter town. You think I don’t remember your tears? Your pathetic pleaing? Jealous of bloody _Bessa_ of all people —”

“It’s different now,” Jon interrupts, “as you said. You came with me halfway across the world, since then. And you’ve had none other since. I know that you’re mine just as I am yours.” 

Theon does not seem to hear him. His voice is shrill, with an edge. “The things you’d said while you had me at White Harbor! You meant none of it?”

“I meant it all, Theon. You will never do for anyone else what you’ve done for me, that I know. It would be different, I think, if that was what you wanted.” He thinks on that a moment and frowns. That _would_ be different, he realizes. “Have you wanted anyone else to take you the same as I’ve had you?”

“No!” Theon shouts, turning red. “Of course I haven’t.”

“Well, see?” Jon tries gently, relieved, “then it’s all right.”

Surprisingly, Jon notices Theon’s eyes are sharp, glistening, as if he is close to tears. Jon’s heart hurts at the sight of him. He hadn’t meant to wound him like this. He’d only wanted to make him happy. He’s not sure what he’s done wrong.

“It’s not,” Theon says fiercely, “it’s not alright at all. You _wouldn’t mind_ , you say. After what I promised you. I promised your brother.”

“And I don’t believe you would ever forsake that promise, Theon. You would never do such a thing with malice. Or to be cruel. All I wanted to say was… I merely want you to know it wouldn’t hurt me, if you were to take others.”

"Well why _not_ , Jon?"

Defensive, Jon folds his arms, toys with the band in his hair. After a moment, he steps in front of Theon, whose face is a sour mix of hurt and fury.

Daring, Jon reaches to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Theon's ear. "Because I know your heart, Theon Greyjoy, as you know mine. I know how you long to be adored. I know how you savour the hunt, the chase, as much as the prize, and with us there is no more chase. I am tamed. And you would never let me go, and I know it. But that does not take away the longing, I can see it in you, the way you look at other girls, the way you smile and laugh. Perhaps not always, but you miss it."

"Even if I did, she is a whore," Theon bites in return. "What sport is there in a woman you can pay?"

"You always found some. Ros, and Kyra, too. You may deny it now, but they were more than sport to you. Not much more, perhaps, but enough. Enough that you pursued them."

"And so you would have me return to those ways now?" Theon stands, forcing Jon back. "Slutting and whoring? For the sport of it?"

"It's not what I want, but I would not mind it, if it were _your_ want."

"I would never allow you the same," snaps Theon. "I meant what I said before, when I killed those thieves. If any other man touches you I’ll kill them. I will keep you always, Jon. You are mine. Only mine, until you turn me away."

Jon shrugs, ignoring the returning thrill that goes through his blood at such a promise. "I do not mind. I do not want anyone but you."

"Damn you, perhaps you ought to!" Theon does shout, then.

"We have been children long enough. I am only a bastard," counters Jon, "not the last male Greyjoy."

The goad works; Theon shoves him. "So that is why, is it? You think I ought to take a wife and breed heirs?"

"You always did claim you would. One rock wife and a hundred salt wives. You think I have forgotten? You boasted of it since I was a child."

"And I gave it up! For you!"

"And I am telling you that you need not."

"Are you not a man, Jon? That you would be happy to stay sequestered while your lover took part in marriage without you? You would have me treat you as your father treated Lady Catelyn. Worse, as he treated your own _mother_."

That does hurt. Jon blinks as if struck. 

Theon seizes on it. "That is what you ask for, Snow. To be a tramp, a whore yourself, only I would not pay you for the trouble."

"That's not it."

"No? You want me to take a wife and she will not be you."

"You will need heirs, Theon."

"Shut up! What do I care about my house? Certainly they were not concerned with my ability to father children. They left me for dead, left me for the Night's Watch! They forsook me. And now so do you. I cannot stand to be here."

Theon shoulders past him to the wardrobe and retrieves his own cloak that Jon had just hung up.

Jon stands there, stricken. "Theon," he calls, turning, "don't go to her, please."

"Ha! Oh, you are a fickle bitch, Snow."

"Not now, please. Not while you're angry. If you care at all for me, please. Do not."

Pushing his arms through the cloak sleeves, Theon takes a step toward him, a cruel sneer of malice on his handsome face. They stand in quiet for a minute, only the noise of the nighttime city and the lapping of the canals to be heard.

"Never presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, Snow."

The door slams behind him.

Theon does not return that night.


	2. Chapter 2

It is still dark, nearly midnight, and Jon sits alone in the kitchens where the servants take their meals. One of the scullery girls had brought him a mug of ale, trying to begin their flirtatious game of trading food for smiles, but Jon only took the tankard without so much as glancing at the poor girl, and she left him unamused.

He drinks alone in the golden hearthlight as the fire crackles and the candles burn low. Time slips by into the late night, and still Theon does not return. 

If he is not back by now, then he will not return tonight, Jon is certain. The Stark stubbornness has worn off on Theon in the worst way. 

So he sulks with his ale at an out-of-the-way trestle table, feeling very much a boy of fourteen again, spurned by the castle household and feeling sorry for himself all alone. Jon didn't understand how Theon could not consider the importance of heirs, especially now that his uncle was gone. To Jon, it seemed that the highborn should have no greater concern than the propagation of their name. What else was all this for, the wars, the lies, the schemes, if not for a name that lasts? Had Theon not fled Winterfell to _keep_ from being the last Greyjoy? And now he balked at the idea of taking a wife.

But it was love, or loyalty, that turned Theon from that now. At least that was what he claimed. Loyalty to Jon. Loyalty to the silly vows they swore each other. And Jon would be touched if it weren't so foolhardy. Pigheaded as he was, Theon had never considered that genuine love might one day cross his loyalties to his house and lands. Jon had never needed to entertain such possibilities; his loyalty meant little to anyone, an oath not worth having. And when his loyalty to his father had crossed the loyalties of his heart, Jon had chosen his heart. Ran away for it. 

And truly, he did not even feel much shame for it anymore.

His father, too, had once betrayed duty for his heart.

How could he have expected anything less of Jon?

As he mopes, Jon does not see Clara enter the candlelit room until she sits across from him with a drink of her own. Some viscous, tangy nectar wine. She says nothing, does not even glance at him at first, and Jon shifts, irritated to have his sulking intruded upon.

Clara sips her drink and says, "So then, he hasn't returned, I take it?"

Jon shrug. "He is free to come and go as he pleases. I am not his keeper."

"Mm," she replies, "it is a silly thing, these... spats of this sort. The young children of summer who go about as if the world lives and dies on the whims of their hearts."

"I don't know what you're talking about," says Jon, the tips of his ears burning, but hopefully it just seems from his drink.

"Fine. Just let an old woman speak her thoughts, child."

"How is it you know we fought?"

"Well he was shouting loud enough. Our rooms share a wall, boy."

She levels a knowing look at him then and Jon flinches, looks away.

"Men are like that," the old woman informs him after another sip of her wine, "as you'll no doubt learn one day, if you haven't already. Was it over that girl who visited today? Her conduct was unbecoming, I’ve made a point to remind her of it."

Jon likes Clara, though she has never been anything but politely icy toward him. She has a severe sort of presence, quiet, but pragmatic. Not unsettling, merely reserved. Often, when their paths cross in the corridor, she regards Jon and Theon with a silent appraisal. At shared meals, she keeps to herself, only speaking up if addressed, rolling her eyes if Ferrego or Theon shared a lewd joke or bawdy tale. She instructs the cook to feed Lady Delena plate after plate of stewed greens and roots for the health of the child and keeps a watchful eye on how much wine she drinks. The Reachman’s pretty young wife always blushes and preens, quietly thrilled, Jon thinks, to be fawned over. 

But Jon has never been alone with her, never had her shrewd eye pinned on him with such undivided attention. He’s not sure what she expects.

Jon only repeats, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Fine, fine," she waves off his denials, “just listen, then. You don't have to know."

Jon frowns. 

"Do you know what it is that I do, boy?"

"You..." hedges Jon, "you treat the brothel girls, with your healer's arts, over at Ragman's Harbour. Keep them healthy. Keep them from... from getting with child."

"And before that? You know what I did before any of that?"

"Ferrego says that you were once employed at the House of Red Hands."

"And does Ferrego say how I came to no longer enjoy such employment?"

Ferrego does, but the story changes often, dependant on how much wine he's had that day. "I've heard several reasons. That you let an assassin murder a dying man so that he might collect a payment. That you killed the man yourself so that you might collect the fee on his head. That you... that you murdered newborns with deformities and then claimed them to be stillbirths."

Clara raises a slim eyebrow behind the rim of her glass. "Ferrego says a lot of things."

"I don't believe a word of it, my lady," assures Jon. "He's an old drunk, and known for his embellishment."

"Well, I shall tell you the truth of it then, lad. Permit an old woman a story."

He nods, draining the rest of his ale. Distraction would do.

Clara watches the candle flame on the table as she begins, "In the city, here, there was once a young noble lady, no more than a girl, wed to some lordly merchant, an advisor to the Sea Lord himself. This young wife, she was with child, as young wives often find themselves, and in need of my services. You see, she could not be certain of the babe’s father. In her foolishness she had taken a lover, a young, handsome bravo from the court of the Sea Lord.” Clara shrugs. “Her husband was not the cruel sort. Just absent. A banal sort of unkind. Expected a quiet, dutiful wife to breed him heirs and not bother him otherwise. Left her locked in manse, unattended, to wither from boredom. Nothing she could have petitioned to end the marriage over. A noble girl’s lot to be condemned to such a pairing. Just… the nature of some men.

“So the silly young thing took a silly young man to bed, imagining that with him she would be showered with words of love and trinkets and kindnesses. She didn’t know better, stupid girl. Thought the handsome one would show her tenderness and romance and all the reveries of courtly love. And, for a time, perhaps he did. But it was not to last. When she got with child, he fled.”

Suddenly cold, Jon swallows, throat dry. He thinks of his own mother. A woman he does not know how to picture.

Clara eyes him. Seems to note the change in him. “Well, she couldn’t be assured of the child’s parentage, you see. Bringing a bastard into a noble household… if it were discovered, it would be her ruin. Her husband would petition to have the marriage annulled and she would never find another match, being a known slattern. The child would go hungry, she would be forced to give the babe up, or end up as another motherless urchin on the canals.”

Jon imagines her, this woman he’s never seen, wretched, abandoned, not yet showing through her gowns. Tears come to his eyes and he blinks them away.

“So she came to the House of Red Hands, desperate, begging. But it is a grave crime to harm the unborn child of a nobleman. My brothers and sisters turned her away.”

“But you didn’t,” says Jon.

Clara smiles, “No, lad, I didn’t.”

What sort of work was that, Jon wonders. He did not know, fully, what a pregnant woman’s body underwent. He imagines the only woman he has ever really looked at fully nude, the whore Ros, imagines her gotten with child, on her back with her skirts up, knees bent, some white-robed healer between them, bloodied up to the elbow, a tray of red knives scattered within reach. A mad, horrific image. 

“So I cut the child out of her,” says Clara, “in the House of Red Hands. He was dead before he was out. Small, could fit in your palm. Not strong enough to survive, but it looks like a child, trust me, lad.”

She stops, exhales hard through her nose, and drains the rest of her own wine. Jon’s hands feel cold.

“It was a hard thing, lad, but it was the right thing. To this day, I do not regret it. They make us swear an oath at the House of Red Hands, like the knights in your country, that we must save all those that we can, and harm none, and I saved that child, you hear? And his mother, both. Saved him from a life of misery, of begging on the canals. From nights of starving, from rape, from a mother that hated him with all her heart. The world is no place for children. Less for unwanted children. It makes them wicked. It ruins them from the moment they’re born.” She sighs, and her voice resolves as she speaks again, “But her lord husband found out, though, and I was stripped of my practice. And I never did see the pretty little wife again. Who knows what became of her? There are days, more days than I wish to admit, where I doubt if my efforts were at all worthwhile. Perhaps I was a fool. Perhaps it really was all for naught, in the end.”

Silence returns, and the story looms in Jon's mind. He toys with his cup, wishing he had not finished off his ale with such haste. Clara's tale feels pointed. Like she had peered without effort into the innermost fears of his heart. How might it have been if his own mother had done the same? Would it have saved any undue pain? Would it have been better had he never been born? Would it have been a mercy?

Jon’s voice is a low murmur when he finally speaks, “And so now you tend to the poor women in brothels.” 

“More children who need saving.”

“And so why do you tell me this now?”

Clara shrugs. “Because it is these sorts of decisions by which our histories will be judged, boy. Each of us, from the lowest thief to the highest lord. Our actions will be accounted for, some day. If not by the gods, then by our fellows, by our children, and all the generations yet to come. There are things happening today in this very city because of the choices men made a hundred years ago, whether we know it or not. Each of us change the very world in ways we can never fully know, smally, each day, with a hundred little choices, and in turn are changed in a hundred little ways. And most of us have no idea. We blunder from here to there without a thought to the consequence. Rare is the time when we are given the forbearance on the dilemmas that truly— _truly_ —mark a fork in the road. There is nothing more worthy, or more horrible, than to knowingly choose between two bad paths. When we come faced with one such a choice, we cannot balk. We cannot cow.”

Jon abruptly feels as though he has walked into a trap. “Pardon, Lady Clara, but I am afraid I do not grasp your meaning.” 

"Oh no, you very much do."

Jon is silent.

“The two of you are bastards, are you not?” she asks directly, a knowing smile. “Run away from the west lands or some odd place in your country.”

It is a test, Jon sees it in her face. For some reason, exhaustion grips him at the thought of lying. He is thoughtful for a moment before replying. "He is the bastard. No family name will claim him. But I... I am a lord's son."

Clara's creased smile widens, and she stops toying with her empty glass. "Ah. Is that so?"

"It is."

"And he calls you Jon, yes? That is the not the name you tell us, but I hear him call you this. Jon, the northern lord's son," she singsongs, "you should be more careful with your secrets." From the sleeve of her robe, she draws a folded vellum letter, sealed with ash-grey wax and hands it to Jon. "Then that means this here is for you, Jon, the northern lord's son."

At the sight of it, Jon's nearly chokes in dread. Impressed into the grey wax is the direwolf sigil of House Stark.

His eyes flick back to Clara, and he knows from her face that his own expression has given him away. 

"Hm, yes?" she confirms. 

A thousand terrors whirl in Jon's mind and he cannot bring himself to speak. 

"Half a year back, or so," Clara continues, "at the end of summer, there was a group of those northmen here in the city. I suppose they had meant to be quiet about whatever it was they were here about, but subtle men they were not. Asked a lot of questions. Caused quite a stir. They were searching for someone."

Jory Cassel and a dozen men of the Stark household guard. They had sailed to Braavos to personally search for Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy when it had become clear that the boys had fled the North. For more than a month they stayed in Braavos, searching. All were men who would recognize the two boys on sight, and they had made inquiries all over the city, brandishing letters of surety from Lord Stark himself that promised great reward to anyone who could return the two runaways into the care of the guard. News of the stubborn, nosy foreigners had been an amusing topic of gossip throughout Braavos for a time. 

Terrified, Theon and Jon had barely left their room for weeks.

"The guardsmen had to return to their Westerosi lord empty-handed," says Clara, "but before they did, they left these with men of standing throughout the city of Braavos, to be delivered to the lord's son, should he ever be found." She taps the letter on the table before Jon.

He swallows hard, heart roaring in his throat. "How—" his voice breaks and Jon tries again, "how did you come by it?"

"I have influence with a man of standing, perhaps."

There is a ringing in Jon's ears. "What does it say?"

"It is sealed. I have not read it."

Jon is not sure he believes that, but does not press. Instead, quelling against the panic in his chest, he ventures, "And what will you do, now that you know?"

Clara scowls at him. "I will do nothing."

Confused, Jon speaks without thinking, "A powerful lord offers a reward for me. You alone know our identities and our location. You could turn us in, or extort us. There is profit in it for you."

"You have broken no law of Braavos, there is nothing I could turn you in for. No guard who would hold you. Others might try to bribe you, perhaps, or petition the city to act, but the Sea Lord is no vassal to the Seven Kingdoms. He would not take you by force and send you back in chains. And for extortion, well, I suppose I could write your northern lord father seeking a higher ransom, but you and the lad would be long gone before anything could be done about it. But that aside, I would not do it. There is no thralldom in Braavos, none. Here, no man is a bondservant. It is our First Law, and you will do well to remember it."

Jon gulps again, feeling the room spin. Would others have such a favourable interpretation of their city's most beholden law? 

The old woman stands, straight and tall. "Read your letter, lad. It has travelled very far to get to you." And she turns and leaves through the open arch, out toward the darkened garden.

Jon stares at the folded vellum before him. The direwolf sigil seems to watch him, snarling, furious with all he’s done, who he has forsaken. 

It feels not unlike when he was caught doing wrong as a child and would be brought before his father for punishment. That quivering in his stomach, the dread, the shame. Nothing had been a greater humiliation as a boy than confessing a trespass to his father. Lord Stark has always been a stern man, but a fair man, as fair to the millers and crofters on his lands as he was to his own trueborn children. That is the reason his people love him as his own children love him. They had always sung their lord’s praises, high and low, and Jon had grown to admire his father’s judgement and aim to win his praise. Just as he learned to hate his father’s disapproval.

As all the children did. Surely, no child seeks to earn their parent’s rebuke, and when Robb or Arya or even young Bran had misbehaved severely enough to merit chastisement it was as if a dark storm cloud would descend over them. They would sulk and scowl and keep to their rooms.

But Jon thought he had always suffered more for it. The children, his other siblings, they had had the undying love of their mother, the love of their tutors and their septa, Ser Rodrick and Maester Luwin. They were the darlings of the North, and the North loved them.

But Jon had had no one else. Jon had only had his father’s love. When he lost it, even for a day’s time, he had felt well and truly forsaken. 

Jon thought he had resigned himself to forever losing his father’s esteem when he had betrayed his order and fled the North with Theon. Thought he had come to terms with that loss within his own heart. Over the last year and a half he had learned firsthand that there was so much more to be found in the wide world than Lord Eddard Stark’s favour. Much more to sustain a man.

But now, he can remember none of it. Jon feels every bit the scolded boy he once had been in his father’s solar.

He gathers the letter and makes for his room.

Climbing the stairs, the garden atrium is dark with the nighttime, the ensconced torches long since extinguished. Mercifully, he does not meet anyone else roaming the halls at this hour.

In their room, part of Jon hopes it was all a mad dream. That Theon will be waiting for him, and call him to bed, and they will lie next to one another recounting funny stories of the day. Instead, the room is empty. The brazier has burnt down to mere embers. The bed is still rumpled from their earlier romp. Just hours ago, that had been. Before Jon had gone and prodded too far. Before Theon, always defensive, always reactive, had fled from their conflict. Again.

But Jon cannot dwell on that now. He must gather himself, put his quarreling with Theon aside. 

He takes a seat on their bed, unwashed still, from their lovemaking earlier that evening. Cracking the wax seal, he unfolds the velum, and finds only a handful of written lines.

_Come home._

_If this boy's protection is the condition of having you return, then I accept these terms. Come home, and I shall do everything in my power to see that he is safe and restored, on my word._

_There are things that I have neglected in revealing to you for too long, and the fault is mine. On my word, return home, and I will reveal to you her name. I swear it._

_Never doubt that I would do anything for your wellbeing._

_Come home._

His father had not used any names, worried the letter may be read despite the seal, but it is so in his father's voice that Jon can hear the words as if Lord Stark were standing in the room with him now.

A crushing homesickness overtakes him, and Jon holds the letter to his chest and is overcome with a wash of sorrow. Tears roll quietly down his face. He has not let himself long so unashamedly for home since fleeing it. What good would it have done? Better not to dwell on what he had left behind, instead on the adventure before him. But he longs, now, to be at Winterfell, with his brothers and sisters. With his father. 

It burns in him, and Jon prays that Clara cannot hear him bawling from their shared wall, that she will not say anything to him come morning. He hopes not. He swipes at the tears on his face. More than anything, Jon wishes that Theon were back in their bed, holding him against his chest and toying with his hair while letting him rage and cry like a child. And Jon is no longer used to it, feeling his misery alone.

Still clinging to his father’s letter, Jon lets his exhaustion win over his tears and succumbs to sleep, curled among their stolen northern furs.

A door slamming somewhere within the house jerks Jon awake. It feels as if he’s been asleep for only moments, despite the noontime sunlight streaming through the window onto an empty bed.

Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Jon presses a hand to the quilts, hoping to perhaps feel the slept-in warmth that Theon may have left. But the blankets are cool to the touch, and Jon sighs, feeling foolish. 

They have not fought like this, not in a long while. Theon has never spent the night away from him, not since they set foot off the ship that brought them to Braavos. 

Jon is not worried, only hurt. He knows better now than to think Theon will not return to him, this time.

Still, the loneliness is hard to bear. Jon feels like a wrung out rag. He still does not understand why Theon would be so angry. Does he not want to sire children one day, legitimate children, to carry on the Greyjoy name, to rule over his homeland? Sometimes, Jon will watch him staring out at the ocean and wants to ask him, but they’ve never spoken much of what Theon has lost, and Theon never brings it up.

With a stiff stretch of his limbs, Jon sits up to find his father’s crumpled letter underneath him, and plucks it from the blankets to read it over again. Without the bleary exhaustion to soften him, the words ring differently. Almost untrustworthy. He remembers standing in his father’s solar, being told he did not understand the details of war. The way his father had discarded Theon as a minor casualty of peace.

It had caused such fury in Jon, then, that a part of him had wanted to reveal their secret to his father then and there. Would it have changed anything, Jon wonders. Father must know now, if he is willing to assure Theon’s safety in exchange for Jon’s return. Perhaps it is only a ploy to lure them back to Winterfell, and the moment they set foot in the North they will both be clapped in chains and marched to the Wall.

But Jon quickly dismisses the thought. Father is honest and forthright and had sworn on his word that Theon would be safe. Jon should not be mistrustful. As sure as spring follows winter, Lord Stark is an honourable man.

Chewing at his lip, Jon traces the letters of his father’s handwriting. There is relief in him, suddenly, knowing his father is willing to at least tolerate their infatuation, despite the consequences.

Is that what Jon wants, truly, to return home? Theon is not destined for the North, and Jon himself is destined for nowhere. As a child he’s wanted nothing more than to learn his mother’s name, be able to picture her face, but the promise of it now seems to hide thorns, just underneath. Returning to Winterfell will have loss, as well. Braavos is not home for either of them, but they have carved themselves a place in this strange city. Given themselves a sense of belonging that their lives in Westeros had always denied them. To return would be to surrender that freedom in the name of their houses once more.

But gods, Jon thinks as he reads the letter again, how he longs to see his family again.

He wishes Theon were here.

For a time, Jon stays in bed, watching the sun reflect on the water from their window. He stays bundled under the furs stolen from their northern beds, listening to the soft bustling of the house as boarders and staff shuffle about. 

At long last, Jon gets up, folds up the letter and gets to his feet to slip the paper into his leather satchel, beneath everything else that he kept inside it.

After tucking the letter away, Jon drags himself back to their bed, smoothing the furs and blankets out over their mattress with painstaking detail before finally forcing himself to dress.


	3. Chapter 3

It is midafternoon by the time Jon leaves their room, and finds Delena struggling at the top of the atrium stairs, her belly now so big that she cannot see her feet touch the steps.

“Oh, Jon!” she calls. “Have mercy, please. Ella, my handmaiden, she’s gone to bring my gowns to the launderers, but I cannot bear to lay abed a moment longer. Help me to the garden, would you? I must sit in the sun or I’ll go mad with boredom.”

“My lady, is that wise?” asks Jon, taking her firmly by the elbow. “Should you not rest?”

“Oh, I shall rest in the garden,” is her reply, and she takes Jon’s arm with one hand and grips the banister with the other as they start to descend. “Lady Clara says that moving is good for the swelling, so long as I do not overtire myself. Our chambers do not have sunlight until well in the afternoon. I think it shall do me some good, the sun, the flowers. Oh, Jon, would you send for some tea? I would be most grateful for your company while my husband is away.”

“If you would like, my lady.” Jon smiles at her. At times, she reminds him of his sister Sansa.

Descending the stairs is slow going. Poor Delena cannot see the steps and must feel for each one with her foot. 

Over the banister, the open atrium permits a few weak autumn rays of sun to warm the garden. The weather has been worsening over the weeks, but no snowfall yet. Snow is rare in Braavos, Jon is told. Winter on the lagoon is instead foggy, damp, and cold. Soon, the wide double doors to the atrium will be closed shut to keep in the warmth, and no one will use the garden until spring.

After the second landing, Delena must stop. She murmurs apologies as she leans both hands on the banister and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. Jon notices when she stifles a groan of pain.

“Oh, you must forgive my state,” she begs, “the babe has been kicking and squirming all night. Woke me up from a sound sleep before dawn this morning. But Lady Clara says that is to be expected as the time draws closer. The child is eager to be born, she says. I do hope it all goes as it should.” She fusses with her hair, half gathered in a loose braid. “Oh, Jon, I beg you, do not say it to Steffon, but I am frightened. I fear that I will not know what to do. That it will hurt. My father’s sister, she died in the childbed when I was still a young girl. I am afraid to die. Oh, Jon, it is improper of me to ask, but do you know how it goes? Did your mother have many children?”

“If she did, my lady, I know nothing of it, I’m afraid.”

“Ah… yes,” she murmurs awkwardly. On her face, her distaste is plain.

At the bottom of the stairs, the garden awaits. The cove of the atrium warming in the afternoon light. The lush colours, the dapple shade of the orange tree—limbs heavy with autumn fruit—the tender scents of the flowers diffuse on the air. A bowl laden with picked oranges sits There is a bead of sweat on Delena’s brow. As Jon leads her through the courtyard, she stops again, holding her pregnant belly.

“My lady,” Jon questions when she halts, “is something the matter?”

The girl’s face is ashen. “No, no it’s fine. There is just… movement. And soreness. Clara says it is to be expected, as the birth draws nearer. It is not so — ah!”

Her knees buckle. With a cry, she grasps Jon’s arm with both hands to remain standing.

“My lady! Are you in pain?”

“Oh! Oh, gods.”

“Lady Delena?”

“The child — the child is moving — ah!”

Her grip tightening on Jon’s arm and her fine face screws up in a fierce grimace. For a moment she seems to not breathe.

“Delena, let me fetch help. I’ll call Leona, or a kitchen maid. Someone must be sent to find Clara.”

“No! No, please, Jon, don’t leave me. Please, I’m frightened. I’ll collapse.” There are tears in her eyes, and her skin is clammy white as a sheet. If he goes, she will faint, Jon thinks.

Delena’s breath becomes rapid and shallow. Jon lays a hand atop hers where she grips him. Her fingers are cold.

“Let me sit you down,” tries Jon.

“No, no, I cannot sit. It hurts! Oh, I’m being ripped in half!”

Delena cries out again, and a gush of fluid spills down the inside of her leg, dampening the white linen of her morning gown. 

Jon turns green, but refrains from gagging.

To stay upright, Delena grips Jon’s arm with both hands, leans on him fully. Her fingers whiten from the strain. She will bruise him, Jon knows. He has bruised from less. Who would have thought this dainty lady to be so strong?

“Gods — oh Mother in her heaven, oh!” Delena swears, folding at the hip. “Oh gods, it hurts.”

“My Lady Delena,” Jon mutters after regaining his voice, “my lady, I must go fetch help.”

“No!” she cries. “No, Jon, don’t leave me, please. I’m frightened.”

Drawn by the commotion, two kitchen girls appear to the atrium from the corridor in their white caps and aprons, their arms powdered with flour. They both gasp at the sight in the garden.

“Find Leona and her mother,” instructs Jon, trying not to slip on the slick slate of the atrium floor. “We must send for Lady Clara. The child is coming.”

“Why is there such a racket in my house?” comes the old landlady’s reprimanding shout as she and her daughter emerge on the opposite side of the atrium. The old woman looks ready to kill before she takes in the sight of poor Delena.

“The child,” stutters Jon, stupidly, clinging to the girl, “Delena’s child is coming.”

No sooner has he said it that Delena screams again, a low, shredded sound as she rends Jon’s arm through his sleeve. It goes on for several seconds, and she pulls so hard Jon must stagger to stay upright.

“Damn,” the landlady barks before turning to her daughter. “Leona, to the kitchens with you. Pour out the day’s soup, start boiling all the water there is. One of you —” she points a crooked finger at the two scullery maids “— go fetch Clara. She’ll be at one of the stuffy pillow houses on the Ragman’s Harbour, either the Cattery or the Lantern. Go and retrieve her.”

Both girls hesitate at being ordered to a brothel.

“Go!” shouts the landlady. “Or send the boy Galeo, if you mice are so afraid of it. He will be glad to go.”

They both flee back to the kitchens.

The old landlady stomps up to Delena, takes her other arm. “Alright, love, let’s get you back upstairs, yes? You’ll not do to drop the babe here in the garden like a sow, now would you?”

With she and Jon on either arm, they steer Delena toward the atrium staircase. Tottering stiffly from foot to foot, her breathing is quick and shallow. Sweat is pouring down her scalp, leaving her hair streaked and damp. Her face is blotched red, as if she’s just run a mile. 

The three of them make it two steps up the staircase before Delena grabs the banister and doubles over once again with a pained cry, grimacing and gasping.

“C’mon now, darlin’, up we go,” the landlady encourages, “we’ve got to get you laid up in bed.”

“No, no,” Delena moans, “oh no, no, no.”

Jon coaxes, “Lady Delena…”

“No, no, no. Oh, Jon, I can’t. It hurts. It hurts too much oh —!”

Again, her voice is cut off in a cry of pain, and she nearly collapses. Jon rushes to keep her upright, sliding an arm under her shoulders. Delena’s face and neck are pallid and clammy. Her eyes flutter, as if she’s about to faint.

“She can’t get up these steps,” Jon tells the landlady, “look at her. She can hardly stand when the pain strikes.”

The landlady regards poor Delena huffing and puffing on the steps with a grimace. “Can we get you up these steps, girl?”

The latest wave of pain has abated Delena. Her breathing evens out. “No, no, I can’t. I can’t do it.”

“Alright, then,” the landlady huffs, “well, girl, we’ll let you down onto the flagstones, then.”

“What?” Delena cries, mortified, “I can’t — I can’t have my child here! Here in the garden? No, no, please, get me to a bed, to a room. Not here, not for the whole house to see.”

“Oh, we’ll keep the lot of them away for the afternoon, fear not.”

“Can Jon not carry me?!”

“No, no, love. Even if the lad could lift you up the steps, were he to drop you, the child may be lost. The risk is too great, now, if you’re so far along with it.”

“Oh, please, no,” the poor girl wails, leaning heavily onto Jon’s arm.

“It’s alright, my lady,” Jon attempts to soothe her, “don’t fear. Someone’s gone to fetch Clara. She’ll be here any moment, and everything will be well.”

“I want Steffon,” she winces, “please, send someone for Steffon as well. He must be here. Oh, I need him.”

“Someone will be sent, don’t worry,” Jon replies, not sure if anyone will be sent at all.

Leona returns to the courtyard with an armful of linens and a pail of steaming water. She sets her load down on the flagstones next to the lavender hedge. She hands a butcher's apron to her mother.

“Walk her around the garden,” the landlady instructs Jon as she fastens on an apron and pushes up the billowing sleeves of her tunic, “walking will help at first. The pains will come faster and faster now, and last longer and longer. Let her lean on you. It’ll help the aches.”

Helpless, Jon does. Gingerly, he urges Delena in a careful lap around the courtyard. It is slow going. Jon does not take his eyes off the girl as she waddles in a stilted gait, worried that he might let her stumble. 

The landlady and her daughter unfold a linen sheet and lay it over the flagstones. Leona has brought a few cushions from the parlour, but the setting does not look more comfortable for it. More appropriate for two young lovers having a picnic.

When another wave of pain takes her, Delena groans and leans heavily on the back of one of the wrought iron garden chairs, bending at the waist. Feeling useless, Jon risks rubbing her shoulder, hoping the gesture is comforting and not untoward.

“My back,” croaks Delena.

“Pardon?”

“My back aches,” she whimpers, “please, just here” — she places a hand on her flank — ”press just there. It helps the pain.”

Jon glances at the landlady and her daughter, but neither balk at Delena’s request. He moves his hand down her back, massaging gently.

“Oh, mercy. Thank you.” Delena drops her head to her forearm.

It feels horribly indecent to touch her this way, a woman wed and nearly hysterical with fright. Perhaps she is not in her right mind. But the touch comforts hers.

“Please, Jon, stay with me until Steffon returns. Don’t leave me.”

“My lady, would the midwife or Leona not be more suitable attendants for you?”

“Men get in the way of it, my lady,” agrees the landlady, “our physician will require your lord husband wait outside.”

“Oh, no, please,” Delena cries, “let him stay. I’m frightened to be alone.”

“That will be up to our physician,” replies the landlady, “and gods be good she will only be moments away, now.”

Another labour of pain has come and gone for Delena by the time Clara does return. The physician takes in the scene in the garden in silence before sending a maid upstairs to retrieve her supplies.

Delena clings to her. “I did not know! There had been labour pains in the night, but they were so mild, as you said they’d be, and I did not think —”

“Hush now, foolish girl.” Clara’s tone is reprimanding but fond. “You will birth a child in the garden just as well as in a bed. The babe does not mind where it’s born.”

She ushers young Delena over to the clean sheet. Both she and Jon help ease her down to lay upon her back. At her urging, Jon kneels down with her.

The landlady swoops in and presses something into the girl’s hand. “Here you are, love. You are a proper lady, yes? You know all your hymns by heart, I’m sure. Sing the hymn of the Mother for us, let her know her mercy is needed.”

Grasped in Delena’s fist, Jon recognizes the small figurine of carved white stone, the figure of the Mother from the house’s modest common altar.

Finding her breath, Delena begins to sing quietly as the women fuss around her.

“Does that help?” Jon asks the midwife without really meaning to.

“If it calms her,” says Clara, nodding toward Delena’s serene focus as she prays, “then it helps. You calm her, so you help as well. Stay and keep her at peace as best you can. Just do not hinder more than you help, or I will send you out.”

The women work like a crew around him. Jon feels uniquely helpless. Leona props Delena on stacked cushions. A maid returns with Clara's rolled leather sleeve of instruments. Clara ties back her sleeves and rinses her hands in the pail of steaming water.

She asks the landlady, "Are your hands washed?"

"Aye, aye, I've midwifed enough children in my days to know how it goes."

"Check her, then," Clara instructs, "see how far along she is."

“Alright, love,” the landlady says to Delena as she pushes up her own sleeves, “let’s see how stretched you are.”

Without ceremony, or warning, she throws the sodden hem of Delena’s gown over the girl’s bent knees.

Mortified, Jon turns away, gulps. He should not gawk at the poor girl.

“None of that, lad,” the landlady admonishes from between Delena’s knees. “We need all the hands we can get, at this stage.”

Delena faints back onto the cushions, rests her sweaty brow on Jon’s shoulder. “Oh, where is Steffon? Someone please bring him to me.”

“It’s best he’s not here for this sight, m’lady,” the landlady comments. The old woman feels something between Delena’s splayed legs. Jon cannot see what. “Nearly there, now.”

“Jon, please, bring me Steffon.”

“Yes, Delena, he’s on his way,” Jon whispers, his voice all but gone.

It all happens rather fast, after that. The three women gather round about their work, ignoring Jon utterly. There is a particularly harrowing round of labours which render the girl breathless, and Clara has her lay upon the sheet. Hot, stinging tears well in Delena’s eyes and she screws her face against a particularly vicious wave of pain. Her palm is on fire in Jon’s hand, sweaty and trembling. To provide some comfort, he mops her brow with a cool, damp cloth, but honestly Jon thinks he might appreciate it more than the girl. At least it gives him something to do. 

In the background, the landlady and her daughter ferry away the soiled linens and provide the physician with new ones.

“Right, the head is showing. Sit up, love.”

At last, the women shove Jon out of the way. They help Delena sit back on her heels, squatting, the landlady’s daughter supporting her back, keeping her upright.

Jon has seen all sorts of women in his life. Northern women, southern women, highborn ladies and lowborn farmgirls. He has seen the Mormont women of Bear Island, dressed in fine armour and fierce. He has seen women working fishing vessels, hauling nets with their hair shorn and their breasts bound. He has seen women spit and drink in taverns. He has seen whores abed. But he has never seen a woman ever look so… _unwomanly_ as Delena looks in this instant. Face red, hair matted and damp, teeth clenched and grunting while she howls in fearsome pain. This sweet, dainty girl, reduced to anguished growling and sobs.

Jon is abruptly thankful that he cannot ever carry a child.

How Delena endures it he cannot imagine.

At last, there is a final cry, low and long, and then a splash, and the women are all calling out overlapping instructions. Delena whimpers and strains, and then, at last, there a cheer goes up around the women. 

“A boy,” Clara says.

“A boy?” repeats Delena, hardly seeming to understand the words.

Jon does not look, but after a few moments more, the shrill cries of a newborn fill the garden.

“Healthy,” the midwife confirms.

“A fighter!” says the landlady, “listen to him scream. He roars like the Titan!”

“Sandy hair, like his father,” the landlady’s daughter adds, stroking the new mother’s hand.

“Oh, let me hold him, please,” Delena asks. Her eyes are closed, but she manages to raise one hand to ask for her child.

“In a moment, love. The cord must be cut, and he must be washed and swaddled. Lay back, girl. Relax. It is done.”

The landlady and her daughter busy making Delena comfortable while the physician washes the screaming babe with a clean rag. Expertly, she swaddles him in a clean cloth, kicking and fussing though he is, not even minutes old. 

When at last, Clara lays the child on Delena’s breast, the girl opens her tired eyes and is greeted by the sight of her new son.

“Oh, look at him,” she rasps, voice nearly gone from the labours. “Oh, gods be good, look at him. Sweet and whole. He is perfect.”

The girl weeps as she brushes a fingertip over the babe’s pinched face. The newborn coos and turns toward the touch. 

“Oh! Oh, Jon, look at him. See how he smiles. My sweet...”

She turns the swaddled babe towards Jon. To him, it does not seem like the child is smiling at all. The newborn’s face is very pinched, like a squinting old man, with creases and wrinkles and an off-putting red colouration to his skin.

Still, when babe gurgles and yawns, Jon finds himself choked up. "He is extraordinary, my lady."

Delena cries out suddenly, and Jon looks up to see Steffon at some distance, bursting into the courtyard with a party of four or five men accompanying him, making his way across the garden with great haste. 

“My sweet wife,” the southern man calls, falling to his knees by his resting bride, “oh, my sweet Delena, forgive me. We were attending meetings and holding audience at the Iron Bank for the whole of the afternoon. The damned keyholders were over an hour late in seeing us. Those wretched people, this wretched city, it has kept me from you when you were in greatest need. Oh, but my dear, look at you!” Gently, he pushes a lanky strand of hair from his wife’s face. “Look at you!”

Limp, exhausted, Delena smiles. “Steffon,” she says, “oh, Steffon, you’re here.”

“I am here, dearest.”

“They brought you to me.”

“They did. Forgive me, I am so sorry I was away.”

The physician Clara is working silently around them, mopping up blood from the girl’s legs, rinsing her tools in the basin. Neither man or wife pay any mind to her.

Delena leans into her husband’s hand. “I was so frightened. You were not here. Oh, but thank the gods, they were watching over us. By their grace, we are both safe.”

Against her breast, the swaddled babe fusses and kicks.

When his eyes alight upon his son, Steffon’s whole countenance melts away and blooms like spring. Tears glint in his eyes. A wide smile breaks upon his face. Jon watches as this stuffy, foppish southern highborn forgets the audience, forgets his men, forgets the whole world. So nakedly joyful is the look of him. Jon almost feels lecherous to see it.

His lovely wife’s smile widens at the sight of him. “My lord.” She turns the babe in her arms toward him. “Allow me to present you with your son.”

“My son,” Steffon echoes.

From across the courtyard there is a sudden commotion. Shouting and cursing. Ferrego has turned up and is admonishing Steffon’s accompanying men, trying to shoo them from the garden.

“Begone, letches!” he shouts. Of the local Braavossi in the house, his Common Tongue is the most flamboyantly accented. “Do you not see this girl is indecent? Go, go now!”

“Er, my good man,” one of them protests, “we are associates of that fellow over there. We attended him home when news came of his wife’s labours.”

“Come to gawk at the poor thing?” Ferrego lays a hand on the hilt of rapier. “You’ll not disgrace a fair young woman’s honour in this house! I will challenge the lot of you!” 

“Aiyee! Get your swollen mits off that sword!” the landlady shouts, and swats the old bravo with a bloodied rag. “There’ll be no duels in this house, you oaf, not so long as I breathe. Do not be disturbing the poor girl further, you drunkard!”

A further disagreement breaks out over that. While it does, Clara whisks the new mother and father away; Steffon scoops up his wife, wrapped in a clean sheet, while the physician carefully ferries the newborn up the stairs behind them. 

Perhaps Jon should follow them. He has been in the garden most of the day, and now night is falling. How long has he been standing? Or was he kneeling? His knees do hurt from the hard slate. Truly, his whole body is sore, as if he’d been riding all day. He looks down. There is blood on his arm. He’s not sure how it got there. He should wash.

And he is about to will himself up the staircase when there is a new addition to the commotion in the garden. The group of men are trying to placate Ferrego, the landlady is trying to scold them both, but there is another figure not far behind, racing quickly up the corridor toward the garden at the sight of the commotion.

Theon.

Jon’s relief is so overwhelming that he has to blink tears from his eyes as Steffon descends the stairs once more.

“You,” Steffon points from up on the landing at Jon, “you were present here while my wife delivered my child?”

“Yes, my lord,” replies Jon, hedging. Steffon is also Westerosi, a southerner, and no man but a maester attends a woman’s birthing room in their country. It would be improper. “I was with her when the labours began, here in the garden. She — it was very abrupt.”

“You were here with her?”

“I was, my lord.”

From the corner of his eye, Jon sees Theon has noticed the exchange and is marching toward Steffon with a fierce intent.

Before he reaches either of them, though, Steffon hops down the last steps and wraps Jon in a crushing embrace, hoists him up, lifts him clear off the flagstones. He laughs in joy.

“Seven blessings on you, lad! You have helped my firstborn into the world!" He sets Jon down, clasps both of Jon's shoulders in his hands. "You defended my wife in her hour of greatest need. I will repay you this honour tenfold! I will see that you drink your fill of the cellar’s best wine. Lads, we’re to find this man a feast tonight!”

Nearby, the men accompanying Steffon cheer once more, slapping one another on the back.

“Jon, was it?” asks Steffon.

Jon blinks, struck dumb for a moment. “Yes.”

“Jon,” Steffon repeats, “I shall name my son for you. It is a good name, a sturdy name.”

“My lord, that is unnecessary!” Jon attempts. “Surely your lord father, or your lady wife’s father —”

“My father is a right sod,” says Steffon, “tried to have me take the black rather than bother with another son he could not marry off. I’ll not name my child for him. I have decided: Jon it is. It is a fine name, and you are a fine man who holds it. I will see that he is reared to honour his namesake.”

Gathered with the landlady's daughter across the courtyard, Theon is laughing at him, stifling his stupid grin behind his glove. It always gives him glee to see Jon flustered.

"My lord, thank you," mutters Jon. "I hope the name serves your son far better than it has ever served me. "

Scattered, eyes nearly brimming with tears, the man Steffon turns to his compatriots again. "Friends, friends, allow me to tend to my lady wife and son once more, and once I am sure they are resting and comfortable, we shall sing and dance and drink until the Titan roars at dawn! In celebration of the birth of my son, every man will have his fill this evening!"

Another great cheer sounds from the gathered men, while the exhausted scullery girls sigh and scowl. The landlady's daughter shoos them off, tells them to wash and rest. Ferrego appoints himself winemaster of the evening instead, and leads the men to the cellar to claim the best vintages, apparently all threats of duels promptly forgotten. Gradually, people thin out of the garden, making for the kitchens, for the hall, for their rooms, for their beds. 

Exhaustion pours down on Jon like a wave breaking on rock. He is dead on his feet. As the attention of the gathered men is at last lured away from him, so too the last of the panic slithers from his body. His knees threaten to collapse. 

He doesn't again take notice of Theon until he is right up on him, sliding an arm around Jon's shoulders to hold him up, leaning Jon's weight on him.

"Come, love," he half-taunts, "let's get you to bed. Big day, you've had. You look ready to faint."

In the shelter of their bedchamber Theon walks Jon across to their bed and sits him down as if he were a battle-weary soldier. Jon lets him. The sun has gone down and no maids had been through to light candles or torches, so their room is shrouded in an unbroken, inky blue quiet. Taking a flint striker, Theon circles the chamber, lighting wicks as he goes. The glow grows, golden and soft, and their room gradually illuminates before Jon's tired eyes. Despite the day's upheaval, everything remains: the little round table where they drink together some evenings, the bench by the window and the view of the city's rooftops and the Titan beyond, the small tapestry that hangs on the wall, the dyed thread faded by the sun.

Theon comes before him. Jon had almost forgotten he was there. Without comment, Theon crouches and begins to unlace Jon's boots.

Jon means to wave him away, but cannot command the words. Besides, he does not know what he might say. They had fought, bitterly, not even a day ago, in this very room. Still hurt Jon may be, but he has no wish for Theon to see him sulk.

Theon slips the old leather boots off of Jon's feet, sets them by the bedside, next pulling off his stockings. Soaked in dry sweat, Jon's toes curl in the chilly night air. Theon takes Jon's ankle in his grip, runs a soothing hand up his calf, kneading the muscle there. 

"I didn't go," Theon says, thumb pressing behind Jon's knee.

"Pardon?"

"To the girl, I mean," he clarifies quietly, eyes averted. "I didn't go to her last night. Or to any other girl. If you were worried."

"Then where did you go?"

Theon looks up at him. "To a shoddy winesink to drink away my petty sorrows, until my coin dried up and they threw me out. Then I lingered about the canals, feeling sorry for myself."

"The streets are dangerous at night," Jon scolds, "you should have come home."

"I was angry."

"I would rather have you angry in my company than wandering the streets drunk and falling victim to thieves or drowning in a canal."

Theon smiles joylessly, "But I wanted you to worry, you see. That was my aim. I wanted to punish you for angering me." Shamed, he looks away, and the smile crumbles. "I am cruel when I am angered. Truly, I am ironborn after all."

The last Greyjoy, Jon thinks. He dare not say it.

“The child,” Theon says, gracefully changing subjects, “you were with the poor girl through it all, were you?”

“It wasn’t like they say. I hardly did anything. Just sat there with her. I had helped Delena down the staircase to the garden this afternoon. Then it all… it all started rather fast, after that.”

“Midwifed your first child into the world. Shall you be offering services as a wet nurse as well?” chuckles Theon.

“Really, I didn’t help much,” Jon murmurs, “it was the landlady and her daughter. And then Lady Clara, when she arrived. I was just sat there, wiping her brow.”

“Aye, a fine lady in waiting you make, Snow. Though, I expect she didn’t mean to push out her firstborn son on the flagstone of some Braavosi boarding house. Doesn’t have the makings of a song, does it?”

“It was nothing like a song. But nothing ever is, seems like.”

“Then it is well that you were there with your boundless good cheer to see the poor girl through.”

Jon chuckles. It really must have been a sight, him and poor Delena crumpled on the garden floor clinging to one another’s hands in blind fool panic, neither having any idea what to do. When the women turned up to take charge, Jon had felt particularly useless, but poor, frightened Delena had asked him to stay, so he had.

And when her husband had returned at last, when he was passed his newborn son to hold, the look on the man’s face had cut clean through the day’s madness and upheaval, straight through to Jon’s heart. There had been such a serenity and warmth come over the man as he cradled his sleeping child. Like how Jon’s own father had looked at each of his own newborn children.

If Jon ever has a child, he hopes that he would know that feeling.

As quickly as the thought comes to him, Jon shakes it away. A child of his own would only be a bastard. The world has no need for more of them.

They grow quiet, and the ghost of their argument drapes over the room like a heavy snowfall. 

Jon looks at him. "You left me."

Theon looks to the floor. "I did."

"You left me _again_. After you swore to me..."

"I know." Theon's hand grips Jon's leg, strokes before Theon tosses his head back and looks him in the eye. "Allow me to apologize to you."

"Are you not still angry?"

"Only at myself." He kisses the inside of Jon's knee.

"We must…" Jon stammers as his exhausted body begins to respond. "We must— There is something I must tell you."

"Later, Jon, please."

Theon rises up on his knees and kisses him. Quiet settles in the room once more. His hands slip up Jon’s legs, slowly beginning to unlace his clothes. Jon’s body comes alive under the kiss. He returns it eagerly, his hands cupping the sides of Theon’s face. This day has been so wearying, and all Jon had wanted was to see Theon and be reassured.

Breaking from the kiss, Theon rests his brow against Jon’s. “Oh, but imagine you, as a father,” says Theon with utter fondness. “Gods be good, you would be so soft for your children. As soft for them as you are grim for everyone else. Would never bear to tell them no and see their sad little frowns.”

“I would so.”

“You wouldn’t,” Theon argues with a quiet laugh. His hand is soft and slick when it slips under Jon’s clothes, grips his cock, stroking it so gently it feels almost like it isn’t there. “You think I do not know you by now? You yearn to be loved. It would break your heart twice over to ever break theirs.”

“I am not so desperate now,” Jon whispers and heat rises in him. “Now, I have you. And you love me enough.”

It’s as if Theon has forgotten their fierce fight in that instant. “Aye,” he says gently. “I do. Gods, I do. Say it again.”

Theon’s hand starts to take pace, slow and soft. His back arches off the furs from how sweet Theon’s fingers feel against his skin. It reminds him of the time Theon had him in the godswood pool, the way the warm mist turned everything dreamlike and delicate. 

“Say it again, Jon,” Theon’s murmurs, bowed low so that Jon can feel his breath against his ear. “Say it for me.”

“You love me,” Jon manages at last, voice hoarse.

“Mhm,” Theon purrs, “never doubt it.” 

Jon’s head snaps up to see Theon’s tongue swipe along the head of his cock, but when Theon notices him staring, he pulls his mouth away.

Jon runs a hand through Theon’s hair, and Theon tries to push him back onto their furs.

“No, let me watch you. You’re so — beautiful, Theon. I just want to…”

Theon scoffs, and leans forward to press a kiss against Jon’s lips. “After all this time,” he says against Jon’s mouth before pulling away. “As long as you — long as you keep talking. Tell me that you know.”

Theon is still so reluctant of the word, like it’s something forbidden. Something childish, shameful. The word carries such weight with him that it is often too heavy to speak at all. 

“I know it, sure as anything,” Jon whispers, and Theon’s slick, warm tongue drags over him. “You risked your life just to — to lay with me, in Winterfell, for a night. And then another. And an — another. You could have taken me rough and thrown me aside, but instead you… you were sweet and you were kind. You were my first. You — you gave yourself to me in a way you’ve never… done for anyone else.”

Theon makes a soft noise at that, swallowing him down. 

Jon keens and grabs fistfuls of Theon’s hair to hold him steady. “You won’t — won’t ever leave me again, said you wouldn’t. Swore to me before the gods. Swore that — that you’re mine.”

Words start to leave him. Jon groans as Theon’s soft mouth moves over him, hands pinning his hips to the wolfskins. When Theon groans, it vibrates up Jon’s body hard enough that his eyes roll back.

“Gods, you love me,” Jon says breathlessly, “told me so. Stole — stole me away like I’m your — prize. Always take care of me. So — so much that you… killed for me. Oh, _Theon…_ ”

Grip tightening on Jon’s hips, Theon shivers. He likes to be reminded of his heroism, likes knowing Jon thinks of it still. The words are like fire shooting through him, pushing him tight against the edge as Theon swallows hard against his cock. The idea is too much, and Jon’s body jerks, release shuddering from him with such force Jon’s back arches off the bed.

Theon does not pull off of him, swallowing until Jon squirms away from the overwhelming sensation with a pitiful whine.

When at last Theon leans over him, Jon stares back at him stunned. Theon smiles, cupping his cheek.

“You — always used to ask,” he says gently, “asked why I chose you. Always seemed so skeptical. In Winterfell. Thought that I would discard you for some kitchen girl before the month was out."

"Was it not reasonable of me to worry? You were proud of that reputation."

"No, you're right,” Theon concedes. “It was not unwise of you to mistrust my intentions."

"Does that still trouble you so?"

Something disquieted passes over Theon’s face then. "I am not proud of how I toyed with you."

Chuckling, Jon tilts his head. “Aye, well, that was before.”

“Cheeky little brat,” Theon snaps, bowing to nip Jon’s throat. 

Jon pushes him and rolls them both onto their sides. Theon grabs Jon’s arm and drags him forward until he’s splayed fully over Theon’s chest. Jon can feel his thundering heartbeat, and for a moment remembers being tucked away in Jon’s chambers in Winterfell, long before the unrest in the Iron Islands, before the Riverlander party visited to the North, before any of it felt real.

_“Do you like being kind to me?”_

“You’re so certain now,” Theon interrupts Jon’s thoughts, head cocked, eyes narrowed. 

It isn’t a question, but Jon answers it. “I am.”

Theon takes hold of Jon’s shoulders and pulls him down, close enough to share the same breath.

“My promise is still true to you, Jon. You understand? I will choose you. Against all else, I will choose you. Promise me that you know that.”

Jon recognizes the look in Theon then, though it takes him a moment to place. It’s been so long since the night they fled Winterfell, and that night had been such a flurry of emotion and cold and fading time.

And truly, thinking on it now, of course Theon had loved him then. But it strikes Jon hard, and jars him, and for a moment they lay close together in silence, before Jon smiles.

“I know that better than anything, Theon. I swear to you, I do.”

Theon tisks. “All your vows.”

“Well, you asked it of me,” Jon points out, chuckling. Theon blinks, apparently not having realized, and Jon’s smile widens. “Perhaps it is not such a Stark trait as you think.”

“Oh, no, it is,” Theon grumbles, toying with Jon’s hair as he speaks. “Unfortunate that my ironborn blood is not strong enough to repel all of your father’s dolesome lessons to me.”

Jon’s smile softens, and Theon goes quiet for a while, contemplating something.

“Even the lessons that frighten me remain with me,” Theon admits finally. “How often he spoke to us of what it was to be a lord, a ruler, and a father. How all three seemed to him to be the same occupation. It seems too heavy, at times. Ruling. Lordship. Fatherhood. Those things seemed fit for other men moreso than me. At least the way that your father succeeded in them.”

“I believe you could make a fine lord,” Jon assures him quietly, “and a fine father, as well.”

In response, Theon only sucks his teeth with a loud, obnoxious pop. 

Jon rolls his eyes. “I’m speaking the truth and you know it. I was a child once. I remember you in the last winter. You were not much older when you cared for me and the trueborn Stark children.”

“That was —”

“You were not made to do it as often as you did. No one forced you to be our nursemaid, but you watched over us, especially with the younger ones; Rickon and Bran. I saw how you were with them.”

“I was hardly a _nursemaid_.”

“So loathe to admit it still, but you are gentle, when necessary. And caring. Sweet.”

Face turning pink, Theon shoves him halfheartedly. After a moment, he makes a sour face, and huffs. Jon can almost see his thoughts forming as he considers things he’d long forgotten could be within his reach. Rule of any sort, fatherhood, a family.

Again, Jon thinks of Steffon holding his son, the awed look on his face. For a moment he pictures it on Theon’s, and wonders if he might ever know Theon’s children. Help raise them. Would that be wise? Would that be permitted? Jon did not want children of his own, if it meant rearing another bastard, but mayhaps, if he got to be a father to Theon’s children...

“I stand by what I said before,” Theon offers into the silence. When Jon looks up at him quizzically, he adds, “You would be a fine father as well, Snow.” In all their time together, Theon had honed the singularly annoying ability to read Jon’s very thoughts.

Still, Jon knows what it took for Theon to admit that. His heart softens a bit more.

Hopeful, Jon seeks Theon’s hand with his own and holds it. To his credit, Theon does not resist.

“Last night, I did not mean to…” Jon stalls, selecting his words carefully, “to spurn you. Or insult you. That was never my aim.”

“I know, Snow,” sighs Theon.

“All I wanted to say… all I meant was to say that we must contend with this eventually.”

“And who says we must?”

“I do.” Jon looks Theon in the eye. “We are not going to grow old in Braavos. I will not allow myself to never set eyes on the North again. We both swore to Robb. We cannot break our word. I’ll not do it.”

“No, we cannot,” Theon answers with fond exasperation. “A man must always keep his word. Another lesson.”

At that, Jon smiles, thinks his heart might burst with fondness. At moments such as this, Jon wonders how it is they ever come to quarreling. A silly thought; he knows it even as he thinks it. But despite all his efforts to armour himself to the world, Jon has a yearning heart, eager to love and be loved. He would do most anything to capture these moments of peace. These instances of calm understanding, where Jon feels that he knows Theon so perfectly that the wider world diminishes, dwindles in consequence until he would rather pull Theon into bed and hold him, kiss him, possess him and think of nothing else.

Jon knows it’s a foolish desire. A childish impulse of unabashed selfishness. They cannot be selfish for the rest of their lives.

“I want to see the Iron Islands with you one day,” ventures Jon, letting his brow rest against Theon’s, breathing in his air, his scent. “I want to stand on the deck of your ship and sail the world with you at my side. I want to see my siblings grow into men and women. I want to attend Robb’s wedding, and hold my nieces and nephews, teach them to hunt and ride and treasure the North. I want to bring you to your homeland and see you restored. And to do that I know… that it will be complicated.”

“Complicated?” Theon smiles.

“Yes, complicated,” answers Jon with a resigned sigh. “It would require discretion, which neither of us have great skill for.” Theon huffs at that. “We both have abandoned the protection of our house and families. We must rely on one another, defend one another, and I would do whatever it took to defend you from the shame of me.”

Jon pauses, wavering.

“If the risk to you is too great — if someone ever suspected us, threatened us... I would leave. Return to Winterfell.”

“Never,” says Theon, “never without me.”

It relieves Jon to hear, though he would never confess it. Promises made now will be as good as a paper ship when winter comes.

“We’ve made many grand promises to one another,” Jon goes on, “without thought to the consequence. But we must be reasonable, now. You even warned me once: never trust a man’s word when he’s hard.” — Theon snorts, grinning — “We are going home some day; we cannot languish by the sea for the rest of our days. So we must be prepared. And if it came about that you needed a wife, that you _wanted_ a wife… I would not begrudge you. All I ask is that you keep me with you.”

“Jon, I would never forsake you,” Theon says. “You don’t belong to the North, or to your father, you belong to me. I’ll not let anyone send you away. I have chosen you, Jon Snow.”

Jon smiles, presses his face to Theon’s throat. “Then it is enough. Whatever else, that is enough.”

One of Theon’s hands circles Jon’s wrist. “Fine. A wife, then, perhaps, some day. But even still. Barmaids and whores? Allowing me the sport of chase is in your right, but without your word I would never — I would never have done it. No matter how tempted, I would have refused it for you. Do you believe me?”

“I do,” Jon rasps, heart in his throat. “Of course I do.”

“I love you,” Theon whispers, and Jon feels it like a hot stone in his stomach. “I _love_ you.”

“I know,” Jon says, looking him in the eye. “Never thought I’d be so sure of something, but that… that I know.”

Theon grins at him, and a laugh bubbles out of Jon, exhausted and dazed.

“Come. Lay down with me. An early night will do us both some good,” Theon tells him. He sinks back onto the wolfskins, pulling Jon with him. “I’ve not slept in an age, it seems, as I’m sure it does for you after all that nonsense in the garden.”

He is not wrong, and Jon nods, tucking his head under Theon’s chin. Theon pulls the quilt and wolfskin over the both of them, draping one arm over Jon’s back, sturdy and comforting. 

For a moment, Jon dozes at the feel of Theon’s fingers tracing shapes into his shoulder.

“I…” Theon’s voice cuts through the silence, but trails off as quickly as it came. He takes a long, deep breath that shifts Jon against his chest, and Jon looks up to face him, curious. 

Frowning, embarrassed, Theon finishes, “I would like to see my mother again.”

Jon smiles. "I should like to meet her," he murmurs against Theon's chest.

The letter from his father sits tucked away in the wardrobe across their room. Though he’s reminded of it, he doesn’t want to speak of it now. He’s reluctant, really, to mention it. That will truly mean an end to this. Part of Jon too, the selfish, boyish part, had hoped that they might stay hidden away in Braavos forever, without concern for the rest of the world. Tucked in their small rented room by the sea, just the two of them. 

But they have been children long enough.

Instead, Jon only nods again, and places a kiss against Theon’s chin, taking hold of his hand before resting his head back down.

They can talk more of it in the morning.


End file.
